To stay afloat during tough financial times, keep your sights focused on reducing, as well as eliminating, your debt. A better start would be reducing your credit card debt. You must also need to be able to build a proper emergency savings fund of at least 15 to 18 months of expenses in savings, by putting money in either a money-market savings account, or in certificates of deposit. Always ensure that your credit card expenses are mostly based on your actual needs, and don t use your card in paying for leisure items. Keep Your Credit Card Debt Ratio To Manageable Levels Always remember to keep your credit card balance paid off on a monthly basis. Also keep your card at a maximum charge level of 30 percent, and pay them off at the end of the month. The information submitted by your creditors to these credit reporting bureaus include date of account opening, type of accounts, payment history for each account, late payments, unpaid child support, overdrawn checks, or any foreclosures, suits, wage attachments, liens and bankruptcies that are derived from federal and state agencies. When evaluating this section, find out if you see any clues about how your company uses credit, and find out whether your company' has a number of assets put up as collateral on existing loans, or if your business has a large number of relationships with other business, to determine whether your business may be overextended. If ever you missed some payments in the past, do all you can to pay your current bills on time. Also remember to keep your outstanding debt to as low as you can, and it would be better to pay the debt off, rather than simply move or transfer it around. The key to maintaining a high credit score is to get new credit only when you really need it. A hard inquiry though,can considerably lower down a person's credit score. A hard inquiry happens once a credit report request is made by a lender who's considering the new loan, or by another party who has debts or liens to collect from the individual. A hard inquiry also refers to a credit report that's requested by the Internal Reveue Service or the courts.